


Sacrifice

by neatomosquito



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brothers, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Hurt/Comfort, POV Second Person, Poetry, plus other eps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:44:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neatomosquito/pseuds/neatomosquito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You wonder if the oxygen floating over your head once pushed through the lungs of those you miss. You wonder if it was the last breath they'd taken. You think about all the final heartbeats you'd witnessed throughout your life and you nod, almost small enough for no one to notice."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

You're staring up at that stars and you're sure that if they were staring back, or once were, perhaps once upon a fairy tale. But now you're not sure and you know that the stars that might have once gazed down for you gaze down for others. Because others deserve it, right?

More than you, right?

_Right?_

And you're staring at the stars and all around them is an inky black that sucks the breath out of you, the ceilingless-ness of it all.

You're still looking at the stars but you don't see them anymore. You're eyes are fixed through the air and you're picturing those who might have once breathed it.

You wonder if the oxygen floating over your head once pushed through the lungs of those you miss.

You wonder if it was the last breath they'd taken.

You think about all the final heartbeats you'd witnessed throughout your life and you _nod_ , almost small enough for no one to notice.

But someone does notice and that someone is more important to you than thinking about air and pulling yourself deeper and deeper into whatever unconquerable black mess is left of yourself. So you cling to this voice and all that it means for you, this bright, bright light.

The stars would be embarrassed, you think, to see this light and then see themselves. The sun would blush. The world would change and fall over itself.

So this voice speaks and you listen to it, and you nod along and you smile and you rush towards it. But you're too busy running that you can't hear the words that it says and you're trying not to trip, to just _get there_ but every time you get close the world seems to swallow you again and you can feel yourself drowning. Drowning in the same question,

this breath,

this lungful that was once inside me,

was it once inside someone else?

Was it the gas that leant the fire it's bite, or the acidic clawing, scraping, of the last bit of throat they had left to share?

He doesn't notice and he smiles and you smile and the stars smile and everything is _fine, just fine_. But it's not and you know it and oh _God it shouldn't have to be this hard._

-

Now you sit on the car that is yours but more his, and you feel the heat from all the steps you'd sped inside of her. You feel her familiarity and her sense of self and the home that had carried you from infancy.

"Hello," you want to say.

But you can't, for a dumb reason, because he is here, and he will here you, and he will think you're talking to him.

So you let your finger drag across the black of her paint and let your fingers grasp into her cooling steel and whisper it to yourself.

Your whisper echoes down inside of you and falls into the black hole that you'd carved inside your own chest.

He smiles at you and you smile back. He looks away and the paint drips off like blood from the edge of a knife.

-

Now you're on another shitty motel bed and you're holding a gun. He's out, he's out because you fucked up. He's out and he's drowning himself and the chilled amber goes down more desperately every sip. You can sense he's slipping away from the world. A world that had kicked you until you had struck back. And then this world _cut_ you as punishment.

You're holding a gun and you picture how easy it would be. You can see yourself doing it, pushing the silver against your jaw, the push of the barrel against your throat, the hairs on the back of your neck that would rise up in response to the cool metal.

But when you do press it up it's warm. It had been pressed into the small of your back all day.

You put it down and vomit into the bathroom, missing the toilet, your stomach spilling across the floor that someone would have to clean.

You're cleaning it but then you pass out. Because you're thinking about how your blood would drip from the walls you'd been staring at and how someone would have to clean _that_ up.

You'd vomited again when you thought of him coming home and seeing that.

You think about how it would be if the situations were reversed but your stomach is empty.

And you're empty too. You lie down, because you're _so damn tired_ and you slip into something black and nothing and perfect. Something mocking and threatening and the most comforting fix in the world.

When you wake you're in your bed. Your hair is clean from what had once been churning inside you. It is midday and he is out. You go into the bathroom to wash the taste of loneliness from yourself. The floor is clean, the guns and blades arrayed on the ratty old couch not hidden.

He comes home and neither of you talk about it. He comes home to you and pretends that he didn't find your gun on the floor with its safety clicked _off_.

-

Now you're watching, screaming, a prisoner in your own body. He's here and he'd forgiven you and you want to kill him for putting himself in danger like this.

( _"I'm here."_ )

You want to rip yourself into your own body, and you hate how you can't wriggle your fingers or scratch your nose, but most of all, you hate watching you fist come _again_ and _again_ and _again_ into his earnest mouth. You watch as your body seizes and smashes and breaks down and charges.

He can't fight you, but it's _not_ you, but you can see how he can see that it somehow kind of _is._ Because the serpent controlling your mouth and your toes and your lungs is somehow akin with you. This dishevelled wanderer watching for a way to get back home, pleading for a way to be welcomed back.

You wish you don't see yourself in the twisted wingless creature. You see yourself less and less with every blow. You see yourself less and less with every break and smear across his face.

(But then it is familiar, isn't it? With her poison inside of you, with your mind set on what you'd been pushed to do. You'd been weak then, what is the difference now?)

You can see him but you can't fight through the snakes defences. You can only watch. You remember the warm barrel of your gun against your jaw.

( _"I'm not gonna leave you."_ )

And something snaps. Something breaks but it is _relentless_ and _frightening_ and _free._ You are everything and nothing at once and the universe break apart and reforms. You soar and dig and your eyes are open and closed at the same time.

You snap and the world collides.

You break free and everything has changed and the world is far from healed; but now it sways upon you and you're choking with the weight of it all.

You speak. You hear yourself say, "It's alright."

You remember his back against yours and his hand against your knee. You remember his arm crushing your shoulders and his breath forced and nearly sobbing in your ear.

You hear yourself speak, but you have control. You have yourself for the first time in a long time. You have a body and you have power and this time you're going to do something right.

"I've got him," the words say, the ones painted by your voice.

You're caught in the calm assurance of a simple following of instructions. Left to right and back again.

You think about your father. You hadn't thought about him in a while. He's yelling and he's calling you selfish. His words are biting and he's screaming that you're _selfish_ and that you _couldn't care less about us._

Watch me, you think, opening up a gateway to hell. Watch me, call me selfish, watch me.

You think about the air you breathe in as he appears, not him, but he feels the same. His light is similar, but dimmer, so much dimmer, a grey streaming of horror and age without wisdom. You think about the air you breathe in and wonder if anyone will breathe this air and wonder if it had once been inside someone else. You wonder if anyone will breathe in this air and wonder if it had once serviced the man who had saved the world.

Probably not, you think.

So you grab him and you jump.

The him who's light shines dim. The he who needed to fall as well.

And the other he, your brother, his eyes wide and his heart broken, watches you as you sacrifice yourself. Your brother watches as you fall.

This time literally. This time, in falling, you redeem yourself.

"Sammy," he says.

"Little brother."

But you can't hear him because you're down, down, _down, down_ ; delving deep into horrors that will sear your skin and turn your mind into a labyrinth of broken doors and bombed rooms.

But you remember him and you remember the world. You remember your brother's shoulder blade against your own. You remember his laugh and, 'Bitch' and 'Sammy' and 'Get this' and 'Baby'. You can hear 'Love' and 'forever' and 'soul mate'. This time his lips aren't moving but it's in his voice. This time you can feel all the things he didn't say thrumming in your blood, keeping you awake, keeping you strong.

To clear out the rubble you imagine what you would say. To take your mind off the poker burning through your stomach or the skin chewed off your arms and chest and neck, you think about all the things that _you_ had left unsaid.

"I love you."

and

"I'm sorry."

and

"You're all I have left, you're all I have left."

It could last an eon, this thinking. This planning.

You worry, though.

You worry about the time that you will no longer be able to convince yourself that there is nothing to plan for.

Because you will never see him again.

Dean is lost to you and he is agony at your absence.

You reach out your hand and he extends his.

Fingers spread an infinity apart.


End file.
